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Monday, August 21, 2023

no over-simplified and short cut solutions.

 

Recently, the community of senior scientists have expressed their dissatisfaction at the tall claims of researchers in academic science departments which have encountered lot of backlashes in the world. 

 

Why ? And what has gone wrong fundamentally?

 

Well, generally these are the observations.

 

"Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.” 

― Idries Shah, Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way

 

Actual observations based reality i.e. not altering the intrinsic attribute of the thing through any sort of assumption, extrapolation, tight jacket hypothesis etc. 

 

An observation which neither excludes the micro details nor compromises on the macro view and does not compromise both to a chain of fallacies to which human mind is vulnerable.

 

A process of observation which does not confuse information for knowledge and knowledge for experience; thought and ideas formulated based on these for wisdom and all these further decorated through well calibrated verbal articulation appealing to intellect and confirmation biases. 

 

These may inadvertently lead to unassailable prejudice, petrified presumptions and start projecting these as the proof and claim with axiomatic certitude as the ultimate truth.

 

Be it politics, religion, or science there are no over-simplified and short cut solutions.

 

So, 'unbiased observation' when used not as a mere articulation of two words or appropriated as a mere label but when practiced involves two enormous paradoxes:-

 

 

One, to stand detached from the thing observed [because I am often reminded of what M.Singer has once said, “There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind, you are the one who hears it”] and

 

 

Two, to become an intrinsic part of the thing observed [You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.―A. Watts]

 

The social engineers of various hues and colors mostly politicians, religious leaders, media persons, business houses to name a few who deliberately define these terms to suit their agenda. Now scientists too have become gullible to this fallacy.

 

The following three quotes I find hit the nail more effectively.

 

"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner

 

 

"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multi-dimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex."- M. Scott Peck

 

“An array of coordinated genes is required to explain even the minutest human phenomenon.’Discoveries' of a 'gambling gene' here and an 'aggression gene' there are derided by the more serious and less publicity-prone scholars. Yet, it would seem that even complex behaviours such as risk taking, reckless driving, and compulsive shopping have genetic underpinnings."- The Selfish Gene – The Genetic Underpinnings of Narcissism

 

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